The present invention relates to a search engine for finding objects that correspond to a search request, comprising:                an input module for receiving a keyword query from a user, and        a search module being configured to map said keyword query to the identifiers of objects that semantically match the keyword or the plurality of keywords contained in said keyword query, and to generate a search result that contains a listing of matching object identifiers.        
Furthermore, the present invention relates to a method for performing a search for objects that correspond to a search request, wherein                an input module receives a keyword query from a user, and        a search module maps said keyword query to the identifiers of objects that semantically match the keyword or the plurality of keywords contained in said keyword query, and generates a search result that contains a listing of matching object identifiers.        
Search engines, in particular Internet search engines such as Yahoo, Google, etc., constantly face the situation where different objects or data items (e.g. a website, a YouTube video, a file . . . ), hereinafter briefly denoted “objects”, may correspond, semantically, to a user keyword query. In these situations the search engine needs to decide which objects are of interest to the user and, based thereupon, which links to objects to display to the user as search results.
Further, search engines may face the situation where a desired object, which maps to a user's search request, is available at multiple locations in the network. Thus, the search engine needs to decide a) which objects (out of a multitude of objects which potentially contain— or map to— keywords from the query) it returns on top of the list of links to the user, and b) in the case there are multiple links to replicas of any particular object how to rank such replica links.
In order to be able to efficiently perform the above tasks, today's search engines have sophisticated algorithms to map keyword queries to objects. In addition, they use proprietary geo-location systems to determine the physical network location of the user who issued the query. Based on such systems, the search engine can optimize the semantic mapping from query to objects. For instance, the use of such geo-location systems enable the search engine for a search containing the keyword “SIDA” to return HIV info for a user in Spain (SIDA=Sindrome De Inmunodeficiencia Adquirida) but returning “Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency” for a user in Sweden.
However, even with the appliance of today's sophisticated algorithms, search results are often not optimally adapted to users' specific needs and to their current individual situation.